


into every life (a little rain must fall)

by akaiiko, onehornyunicorn



Series: she's cheer captain kissing him under the bleachers [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Genderqueer!Keith, M/M, Questionable Humor, Sharing the Umbrella is a Metaphor, Valiant Attempts at Wooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-21 08:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14281017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaiiko/pseuds/akaiiko, https://archiveofourown.org/users/onehornyunicorn/pseuds/onehornyunicorn
Summary: Falling in love with Keith Kogane hurts. Everyone knows that. But it’s easy to fall in love with her, anyway.The rain’s starting to come down harder. He’s just about to make his own dash for his car when an umbrella catches his eye. It’s bright red, for one thing, and the only thing that’s not moving. Whoever’s beneath it stands near the corner of the main drive. Like they’re waiting for someone.Grandpa’s got a half dozen Old Hollywood movies with moments like this. Where the music swells and the world fades away and all that’s left is a beautiful dame under a red umbrella. Maybe that’s what keeps Shiro still as the umbrella tips back ever so slightly and he catches sight of Keith. Through the silver haze of rain she looks delicate. All he can focus on is the set of her lips caught in a wistful smile. Like she knows whoever she’s waiting for isn’t coming.





	into every life (a little rain must fall)

**Author's Note:**

> i am the awkward shiro content i want to see in the world.

Falling in love with Keith Kogane hurts. Everyone knows that. But it’s easy to fall in love with her, anyway.

Usually it happens as she glides down the main hall of their school. For her, it’s not a catwalk, because she’s something better than a model. Keith is classic Hollywood beautiful in her five inch heels and black leggings and draping sweaters. People sense her coming before they see her. Feel the way she walks with the self assurance of the ice queen she is. If all of that isn’t enough, there’s the eyes, large and heavily lashed and indigo and full of challenge.

More than the school’s in love with her. No one’s actually managed to have her though. By now her rejections of more persistent guys are legendary.

“Hate to watch you go,” Sniv says. He’s rubbing his chin, eyes fixed on the curve of Keith’s ass as she bends over to grab her backpack from the bottom of her locker. Like she _didn’t_ just flip him off in front of the entire hallway. “ _Love_ to watch you leave.”

The quarterback has his usual pack around his locker. It’s full of people who eagerly laugh and chime in with “that _ass”_ like Sniv’s actually clever instead of desperate. Maybe because they all assume that eventually, probably around the time homecoming campaigns start, Sniv will nail the one girl that no one can touch. The perfect cliche.

“Shut the fuck _up_ , Sniv,” Shiro growls. He’s clenching his locker door like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. Or maybe like it’s the only thing keeping him from launching at Sniv’s smug face. That second one is actually true.

Keith gives Shiro a quietly assessing look as she closes her locker. Unlike earlier, she ignores Sniv’s whistle as she walks away. Just like she’s ignored most everything Sniv’s thrown at her since school started three weeks ago. Shiro isn’t even sure she’s actually said anything to him, or if she’s just flipped him off occasionally to make sure everyone knows she hates him.

Shiro grits his teeth and slams his locker door. He’s the senior class president. He’s the captain of the baseball team. He’s going to be valedictorian. And he’s not even _with_ Keith Kogane.

Bitch of it is, Shiro thought he was above falling in love with Keith Kogane.

Last year, Shiro didn’t have any classes with Keith, or share lunch hour with Keith, or have a locker on the same stretch of hallway as Keith. Maybe he was smart enough not to fall in love with a pretty girl he saw for maybe five minutes total in the course of a school week. But he’s also stupid enough to fall in love with a pretty girl who understands nonlinear algebra, and invites lonely girls to the cheerleading table during lunch, and walks past an entitled bastard every day with her chin up like she doesn’t hear his catcalls.

There’s karmic justice in this. Spend a good six months convinced he’s above petty teenage shit like falling for the ice queen. Go and fall for her so hard that he’s half convinced he’ll die from it.

Because here’s the thing. For other people, the pain of loving Keith Kogane is in the wanting and the not having. In the confessions rejected and the crushes ignored. All the usual easy high school things that’ll be half forgotten by the time they graduate. It’s a rite of passage to want the unattainable. So the pain they feel is brief and sharp. Like a paper cut.

For Shiro, the pain of loving Keith Kogane is in the way he can’t unsee how lonely she is. No one’s ever with her. Not even as friends. For all the girls she welcomes to the cheerleading table no one ever gets close. She glides down the halls, untouchable and untouched, the ice queen with sad eyes. She only ever smiles at pep rallies and games. Perfect, but empty. Sometimes he catches her looking at couples nuzzling in the hallway or friends laughing in a huddle on the school steps. That’s when he sees the cracks in her perfect veneer before she turns away to focus on reapplying her lipstick or doing her chemistry homework. And he can’t explain it to himself—he doesn’t want her because she’s lonely, not exactly, even if that’s what he can’t stop noticing—but he loves her in her loneliness.

People surge around him as extracurriculars continue to let out. Everyone’s eager to get out of school now that it’s Friday. Ignoring Sniv’s crowd, Shiro lets himself be moved along by the flow of people. Down the hall and out the school’s main entrance into the steady rain that’s been coming down all day.

Shiro pauses just outside the doors to watch. Girls shriek, like they somehow didn’t expect this, and run for their cars with bookbags held over their hair. Guys cuss, because that’s the manly equivalent of shrieking, and run while shoving at their friends. It’s funny, and soothing, and one of those things that Shiro’s rarely part of but enjoys seeing anyway.

The rain’s starting to come down harder. He’s just about to make his own dash for his car when an umbrella catches his eye. It’s bright red, for one thing, and the only thing that’s not moving. Whoever’s beneath it stands near the corner of the main drive. Like they’re waiting for someone.

Grandpa’s got a half dozen Old Hollywood movies with moments like this. Where the music swells and the world fades away and all that’s left is a beautiful dame under a red umbrella. Maybe that’s what keeps Shiro still as the umbrella tips back ever so slightly and he catches sight of Keith. Through the silver haze of rain she looks delicate. All he can focus on is the set of her lips caught in a wistful smile. Like she knows whoever she’s waiting for isn’t coming.

Later, he won’t be able to explain it. How something in him snapped. How he got to the bottom of the stairs and instead of going right toward the student parking lot he went left toward her. How he knew that if he didn’t go to her _now_ he never would.

“Keith!”

Despite the four inch heels on her red ankle boots, she manages to turn toward him in a graceful swirl that seems like it ought to be in slow motion. “Shirogane?” One of the best things about Keith is her voice. All the husky contralto of a lounge singer and the muted drawl of a Southern belle. The way she says his name makes it sound like she’s tasting it.

The halo of her umbrella keeps him from getting too close. Makes him stop and duck so he can get a better look at her. Some of the rain’s gotten past her umbrella and misted her hair. It’s curlier than usual, glossy black, and his fingers twitch with the need to touch. “Hey,” he says.

From watching her, he knows that this is usually the part where she rolls her eyes and turns on her heel to leave. Someone like him is high enough on the school hierarchy that she doesn’t try to play nice. It feels like a victory, then, when she just presses her lips together briefly before saying, “Hi.” Doesn’t matter that she sounds infinitely reluctant. Keith doesn’t actually talk to people that she doesn’t want to.

It occurs to him that he didn’t expect to get this far.  “Uh.” It occurs to him that he’s never asked a girl out before. “Um.” It occurs to him that he needs a better play than the current stutter and stare routine.

“Do you...need something?” she asks. Cocking her head, she watches him with those indigo eyes, and he thinks _oh fuck_.

Shiro’s desperation to keep this going gets the better of his common sense. “Can I share your umbrella?”

Probably he’s imagining the faint hint of sympathy (or pity) in her expression. But he can’t protest, because in a miracle of god, she hasn’t shut this whole conversation down yet. She tips her umbrella forward and he hunches down to step under it. They stare at each other for several seconds.

“You’re too tall for this,” she says. “I’m getting rain on my leather jacket.” Her nose scrunches up briefly and she looks adorably perturbed. Every cliche in the universe of a wet kitten.

Unable to bite back his grin, he reaches for the umbrella. “I will get you wet,” he says as he wraps his hand around the umbrella handle just above hers. Their fingers brush, warm and electric, and she lets out a soft noise that’s not quite a protest. “One way or another.” Shiro means it as a joke. A dumb, terrible joke. He almost thinks it’s landed as he watches her mouth part and her tongue dart out to lick her lower lip. Not a laugh, but she’s not looking at him like he’s a total idiot.

 

Scratch that. It took him longer than he expected but he’s officially fucked up.

Keith’s lips curl into one of her standard smirks. “Fine. I’ll play your game,” she says. Cool as anything. Letting go of the umbrella, she crosses her arms over her slender chest. Nothing but challenge in her expression as she eyes him. Even if they’re ‘playing’ she already thinks she’s won. “You have ten minutes to do whatever you want to my body. What do you do?”

One, he’s already fucked up. Two, he’s not actually a dick. And three, there’ve been baseballs to the head that shocked him less than this. Maybe all that’s why he tells her the truth.

“I’d pull you into my arms,” he says, just loud enough to be heard over the sound of the rain. He reaches out to brush back some of the thick black curls tumbling over her shoulders. “And I’d press a kiss to the hollow of your neck. Here.” The backs of his fingers brush her pale skin, just over the thrum of her pulse, and she lets out a shaky gasp that he feels more than hears. “I’d hold you there, kiss your neck, until you went soft and sweet for me.”

“And then you’d fuck me,” she says. Doesn’t matter how crude the words are, she wields them with precision, meaning to shut him down before he can get any further. Just like her smirk, which has a sharp edge to it like it’ll distract from the tremble of her lower lip.

Shiro slides his hand to cup the back of her neck. Half of him expects her to pull away but when she doesn’t he crowds closer to her. “No,” he says. Quiet. Firm. “If I only get ten minutes, then I hold you until you know you’re safe with me.” Ducking his head, he waits until she meets his eyes. In the hazy light, they look almost violet, and he feels something infinitely tender squeeze in his chest. “I hold you until you want to _stay_ with me.”

Keith uncrosses her arms just enough to put a hand on Shiro’s chest. Holding that last bit of distance between them. The other arm remains tucked protectively over her body. “Why.” Not a question, a demand. Dark eyes spark and her chin lifts. This isn’t bravado. This is the ice queen in her full glory.

All or nothing. If he answers wrong he’s struck out. If he answers right, then she’ll fall neatly into his hands, sure as a fast ball. Just has to convince her than he can catch her.

That’s enough to center him and he feels himself falling into that space he finds on the field, where everything is sharper, and he feels every passing moment like a lifetime. Rubbing his thumb against the back of her neck, he says, “Because you’re smart, and kind, and a little terrifying. Because you deserve to smile. Because you should let me kiss you like you deserve.”

God, the way her expression cracks open. Beneath that ice queen veneer is something quietly hopeful and achingly vulnerable. Shiro wants to curls over her and block out the rest of the world. Easy to do, when she sways into him, testing how he takes her weight. The love in his chest is a warm, possessive thing he doesn’t quite know what to do with. “Why,” he hears himself say, even as he gathers her closer with one arm. There’s rain on the back of her leather jacket and he winces at the memory of his earlier joke.

“Because you see me,” she says. One of her hands is still on his chest, but now she grips his tee shirt and goes up on her toes. The kiss she brushes over the corner of his mouth is sweet and chaste and leaves him breathless. “And if you want to be my boyfriend, you’re going to give me a ride home now, Shirogane.”

“Shiro,” he says. “You can call me Shiro, Kee.”

**Author's Note:**

> come scream at [me](https://akaiikowrites.tumblr.com/) (re: the fic) and/or [uni](https://oneveryhornyunicorn.tumblr.com/) (re: the art) on tumblr. we really like screaming.


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